Part 6 (2/2)
Mrs. Ormiston treated him to her little stare, and then looked round the table, putting up one plump, bare arm as she pushed in a couple of hairpins.
”Ah! but she's a real jewel of a child,” she said audaciously. ”She's the comfort of my social existence. For she doesn't resemble me in the least, and therefore my reputation's everlastingly safe, thanks to her.
Why, before the calumniating thought has had time to arise in your mind, one look in that child's face will dissipate it, she's so entirely the image of her father.”
There was a momentary silence, but for the sobbing of the gale and rattling of the cas.e.m.e.nts. Then Captain Ormiston broke into a rather loud laugh. Even if they sail near the wind, you must stand by the women of your family.
”Come, that will do, I think, Ella,” he said. ”You won't beat that triumphant bull in a hurry.”
”But, my dear boy, so she is. Even at her present tender age, she's the living picture of your brother William.”
”Oh! poor William,” Roger said hastily.
He turned to Mary Cathcart. The girl had blushed up to the roots of her crisp, black hair. She did not clearly understand the other woman's speech, nor did she wish to do so. She was admirably pure-minded. But like all truly pure-minded persons, she carried a touchstone that made her recoil, directly and instinctively, from that which was of doubtful quality. The twinkle in Dr. Knott's gray eyes, as he sipped his port, still more the tone of Roger Ormiston's laugh, she did understand somehow. And this last jarred upon her cruelly. It opened the flood-gates of doubt which Mary--like so many another woman in respect of the man she loves--had striven very valiantly to keep shut. All manner of hints as to his indiscretions, all manner of half-told tales as to his debts, his extravagance, which rumour had conveyed to her unwilling ears, seemed suddenly to gather weight and probability, viewed in the moral light--so to speak--of that laugh. Great loves mature and deepen under the action of sorrow and the necessity to forgive; yet it is a shrewdly bitter moment, when the heart of either man or woman first admits that the G.o.d of its idolatry has, after all, feet of but very common clay. Her head erect, her eyes moist, Mary turned to Julius March and asked him of the welfare of a certain labourer's family that had lately migrated from Newlands to Sandyfield.
But Ormiston's voice broke in upon the inquiries with a determination to claim her attention.
”Miss Cathcart,” he said, ”forgive my interrupting you. I can tell you more about the Spratleys than March can. They're all right. Iles has taken the man on as carter at the home-farm, and given the eldest boy a job with the woodmen. I told him to do what he could for them as you said you were interested in them. And now, please, I want you to drink my small nephew's health.”
The girl pushed forward her wine-gla.s.s without speaking; and as he filled it Ormiston added in a lower tone:--
”He, at all events, unlike some of his relations, is guiltless of foolish words or foolish actions. I don't pretend to share Ella's superst.i.tions, but some people's good wishes are very well worth having.”
Unwillingly Mary Cathcart raised her eyes. Her head was still carried a little high and her cheeks were still glowing. Her G.o.d might not be of pure gold throughout--such G.o.ds rarely are unfortunately--yet she was aware she still found him a very wors.h.i.+pful kind of deity.
”Very well worth having,” he repeated. ”And so I should like that poor little chap to have your good wishes, Miss Cathcart. Wish him all manner of nice things, for his mother's sake as well as his own.
There's been a pretty bad run of luck here lately, and it's time it changed. Wish him better fortune than his forefathers. I'm not superst.i.tious, as I say, but Richard Calmady's death scared one a little. Five minutes beforehand it seemed so utterly improbable. And then one began to wonder if there could be any truth in the old legend.
And that was ugly, you know.”
Dr. Knott glanced at the speaker sharply.--”Oh! that occurred to you, did it?” he said.
”Bless me! why, it occurred to everybody,” Ormiston answered impatiently. ”Some idiot raked the story up, and it was canva.s.sed from one end of the county to the other last autumn till it made me fairly sick.”
”Poor boy!” cried Mrs. Ormiston, ”and what is this wonderful story that so nauseates him, Dr. Knott?”
”I'm afraid I can't tell you,” the doctor answered slowly. A nervous movement on the part of Julius March had attracted his attention. ”I have never managed to get hold of the story as a whole, but I should like to do so uncommonly.”
Julius pushed back his chair, and groped hurriedly for the dinner napkin which had slipped to the ground from his knees. The subject of the conversation agitated him. The untidy, little chap-books, tied together with the tag of rusty ribbon, had lain undisturbed in the drawer of his library table ever since the--to him--very memorable evening, when, kneeling before the image of the stricken Mother and the dead Christ, he had found the man's heart under the priest's ca.s.sock and awakened to newness of life. Much had happened since then; and Julius had ranged himself, accepting, open-eyed, the sorrows and alleviations of the fate he had created for himself. But to-night he was tired. The mental and emotional strain of the last few days had been considerable. Moreover, John Knott's presence always affected him.
The two men stood, indeed, at opposing poles of thought--the one spiritual and ideal, the other material and realistic. And, though he struggled against the influence, the doctor's rather brutal common sense and large knowledge of physical causes, gained a painful ascendency over his mind at close quarters. Knott, it must be owned, was slightly merciless to his clerical acquaintances. He loved to bait them, to impale them on the horns of some moral or theological dilemma.
And it was partly with this purpose of harrying and worrying, that he continued now:--
”Yes, Mrs. Ormiston, I should like to hear the story just as much as you would. And--it strikes me, if he pleased, Mr. March could tell it to us. Suppose you ask him to!”
Promptly the young lady fell upon Julius, regardless of Ormiston's hardly concealed displeasure.
”Oh! you bad man, what are you doing,” she cried, ”trying to conceal thrilling family legends from the nearest relatives? Tell us all about it, if you know, as Dr. Knott declares you do. I dote on terrifying stories--don't you, Mary?--that send the cold s.h.i.+vers all down my back.
And if they deal with the history of my nearest and dearest, why, there's an added charm to them. Now, Mr. March, we're all attention.
Stand and deliver, and make it all just as bad as you can.”
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